Search

Making professional looking online tutorials does not require any fancy equipment. In fact, anyone can make slick screencasts using Jing and a presentation program such as PowerPoint or Google Presentations. Planning, revision, and aesthetics are far more important than any particular tool.

Here is an example of a recent video I made. After you watch it, I’ll explain how I made it:

The finished product you see is a result of many, many takes. I planned out the presentation ahead of time, and then I messed up…over and over again. The willingness to redo work is perhaps the most important tool.

Getting to the nitty gritty, here is how I created the video:

I hope you find this instruction useful. Better yet, I hope you make your own online tutorials and share the links with me. As you work, you might find the following points useful:

Download the free version of Jing first. I used it for years before moving to JingPro (at the whopping price tag of 15 dollars per year)

JingPro does allow me to quickly upload videos to YouTube, and I can now quickly save videos in a mp4 format which works with iMovie. (The free version of Jing saves videos in .swf format. Not a tragedy because you can embed Jings easily.)

Use a dark background with light lettering. The high contrast looks good.